I have been in contact with most of Toyota's mainstream hot-selling models, familiar with Toyota Camry, Toyota Highlander, these products, most of these products are based on practicality, emphasizing reliability and practicality. In the past, Toyota would not easily touch the luxury texture.
But today' GAC Toyota new SUV, to tell us how to play luxury with 210,000-300,000 yuan. Its arrival made me stereotyped the previous Toyota cars, and before the weather became hot in early March, we came to the coastal city of Xiamen and test-drove this new Toyota SUV , Weisa.
How does this new car, which flaunts luxury, perform as a whole?
About the design, Toyota radicalized once?
When I first saw the real car, I believe that many people will feel the same as me, which is perhaps Toyota's most bold and radical design in the mass production car in recent years.
To be honest, it's a bit like the shape of the Toyota Supra, especially the silhouette of the front of the car with a lot of sharp lines, especially the red test drive, and the charm of the Supra. There are a total of five colors on the Toyota Wesa body that can reflect the texture of the color, black, white, gray, silver accounted for four, a radical and bright color left for red; we got a gray test drive, the texture of the real car is not bad.
Toyota Wesa's overall design style, and the current domestic Toyota models formed a very obvious design difference, the use of a more obvious sense of line design techniques, the line of the body outlined a sporty visual effect, so that the length and width of 4780/1855/1660mm, wheelbase 2690mm car looks less "stupid".
Talk about two of my favorite designs on the body, headlights and taillights. Toyota Wesa all series of standard LED high and near light, the light group structure is a bit like the Lexus design style, there is no complex light group structure, simple and direct two LED light strips draw the light group structure, there is a guide to the visual center to the front of the car bulge.
If you think the design of the headlights is too monotonous, then admiring the car at the diagonal rear of the rear is definitely the best angle. The layered silhouette shape, coupled with the integration of the through-type taillights, the visual impact brought to me by the rear of the car is not lost to any luxury product of 300,000-400,000 yuan.
With the visual center lowered a bit, the rear surround component covered with a through-line chrome trim strip that echoed the front of the car, and I personally felt that the turn signal group integrated on both sides destroyed the overall sense of this component, making the lower part of the rear of the car seem a bit cumbersome. However, the overall feeling of the rear of the car is still high-end and luxurious.
From the body color to the body shape, Toyota Weisa can score a high score on the luxury atmosphere creation. The body color belongs to the feeling of "you can't go wrong with which one to choose", after seeing the real car, I think silver, white and black will become the three most popular colors, and red will become the choice of a small number of personality people.
The interior is luxurious, visual + tactile are all high scores
Regarding the interior, I would like to say that I am sorry that I did not get a black-brown, black-gray test drive. Toyota Wesa gives a total of three interior color options, in addition to the above two, there is also an all-black color scheme. It's not that the all-black one is not good enough, but the first two color schemes are more likely to visually bring out the luxury in the car.
Is the material used in toyota wesa cars up to the level of luxury cars? This was a question I had before I got in the car. The main components of the materials used in the car are piano paint decorative board, silver decorative board, leather fabric, stitching, soft wrapping material and so on. The material is very exquisite, how to use these materials to make the sense of luxury "use up" is also very luxurious?
To give a few examples, as the main driver, I will mainly touch and visually see the areas when driving, the door panel, the handle, the right central control area, the central armrest box, the steering wheel, the gear handle; the visual area includes the left air outlet and the central control area. In the areas I could touch as often as possible, they were covered with soft, leather, piano lacquered decorative materials; the air outlets were chromed, the door panels and the center console were stitched, and the details were also in line with the feeling of a luxury car.
In addition, Toyota Wesa also added some adjustments to the sunroof, the panoramic sunroof uses a "color change" technology similar to the one used on the Boeing 747 glass, which can switch the dimming mode and transmittance, but only in the top model, we did not experience it on the test drive this time, which is a bit of a pity.
There are not too many physical buttons on the car, and most of the functions are concentrated in the central screen, including voice interconnection system, map navigation, entertainment App, remote control function, etc. The overall feeling is very convenient to use, and the reaction speed and the degree of detail of the picture are also satisfactory, definitely not the feeling of the Toyota car system that you can experience before. Under the screen is the volume adjustment area and the air conditioning control area, which are also touch buttons, and the feedback force is general.
There are no highlights in the design of the steering wheel, but the standard leather material of the whole series is indeed a plus, and the grip feeling and button feedback are all permeated with a kind of "old brand" performance. Behind the steering wheel is a 7-inch LCD screen + mechanical instrument, the information can be displayed is very rich and the picture is delicate enough, a few days of travel down to find that there is no need to go to the full LCD instrument (the top is only available).
What about ride comfort? The rear row can make an adult with a height of 183cm have a good riding experience, and the front and rear seats are thick enough to make no obvious difference after the separate experience, the only difference is that the front row will be better wrapped. It is undeniable that I recognize the design and materials in the Toyota Wesa car, at least the starting price of it. But there are also places in the car that can be optimized in the design, such as a one-button start button and the volume adjustment method at the bottom of the screen.
No surprises for the power, details are the highlights?
How does this car drive? Before talking about the test drive, let's first understand the powertrain, Toyota Wesa provides 2.0L self-priming and 2.5L self-priming hybrid two kinds of powertrain, our test drive uses that hybrid system. This hybrid system is also the most visible power system in GAC's product line, and its reliability has been fully verified by the market and recognized by users.
To be honest, this car is not too noticeablely different from the hybrid Camry I have driven before (only referring to the power part). After all, the 2.5L hybrid system matches the E-CVT gearbox, and the maximum comprehensive power is 160kW. There is really no need to talk too much about this hybrid system, you just need to know that this system is also used on toyota Highlander and Toyota Saina. This hybrid system, from the power output to the smoothness, makes people unable to pick out the shortcomings, the quietness of the low-speed start is really great, and the response is also very fast. When higher power requirements are required, the noise will be transmitted to the car after the engine intervenes, but it is not so obvious; if it is intervened at a uniform speed, this sense of intervention will be obviously weakened.
What's impressive is the full-speed adaptive cruise, which we turned on in the city to see what Toyota has recently tuned it into. Facts have proved that Toyota Wesa's full-speed adaptive cruise function to keep up with the mainstream level, in the close follow car braking stage without the previous sense of stiffness, even in the corner to complete the lane recognition is very smooth, if the lane recognition detects the vehicle pressure line is not stiff to "drag back" the steering wheel into the lane line, but a gentle correction. Overall, the experience of using this feature deserves a high score.
In addition, A point that makes me feel good is Toyota Wesa's adjustment skills for the chassis. Although the mechanical structure adopts the same combination of front McPherson and rear multi-link as Toyota Veranda, the performance given is indeed calmer than Thatlanda. Vehicles filter the small vibrations on the road surface more thoroughly, regardless of the front and rear rows will not have obvious feelings; in the face of large bumps such as speed bumps, the bumps in the rear row will be more obvious than the front row, but it can be felt that the suppression is already good.
Regarding the driving experience, it is worth saying that this is the point, although the hybrid system has long been a highlight, but we have seen too many products using this system on the market, and its advantages have not to be expanded too much. This time, we mainly focused on the details of the test driving experience, such as assisted driving functions, comfort in the car when the vehicle was running, etc. After a few days of driving, we can give this car a confirmation that the driving texture is in line with the performance of a luxury car.
summary
From the perspective of the announced price, 21.68-30.38 million and Toyota Highlander have a certain price overlap, but obviously the positioning of these two products and the user population are different, Highlander, whether it is the design of the seven seats, the adjustment of the chassis, are biased towards home.
Toyota Wesa, on the other hand, meets the needs of young users for a luxury SUV in terms of vision and experience. Potential buyers may hesitate whether it meets the requirements of a "luxury, high-end" car, and after a few days of test drives, the car gives me the feeling that it can fully meet the above car needs and may become the most popular SUV product in this price point joint venture brand. As for whether the experience of this car is close to Lexus? As a Lexus owner, I can draw conclusions that I am very close in terms of driving quality and design.